Though best known for his role in the Scopes monkey trial, Darrow argued before the Supreme Court that the government's conspiracy and treason laws were unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment. He lived and practiced law during a period of unprecedented upheaval and profound change in the United States. The transition from a largely rural and agricultural society to an industrialized and urbanized nation created sharp contrasts between the wealthy and the new working-poor class.
Darrow considered the conditions the poor faced in the new industrial society inhuman and unjust. Darrow believed that such restrictions were unconstitutional. Of all the threats to freedoms of speech, of the press, and to gather and to petition the government, the most sinister, Darrow thought, was the increasing use of conspiracy laws to combat labor unrest and other forms of dissent.
Such laws both increased the potential severity of sentences and criminalized the discussion of or dissemination of information or ideas that were directed at improving the lot of the working class.
In Darrow had the chance to argue against conspiracy laws in front of the Supreme Court. Debs and other union leaders were found guilty of violating the injunction, and a federal judge sentenced them to three months in jail. Darrow appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, where he argued that Debs and the others had been convicted of doing and advocating what is lawful — organizing support for a union.
Before the trial was over, Darrow himself was under attack — for bribing the jury. Though he was not found guilty, his reputation would never be the same. From then on he never got any employment from organized labor.
His career as a union lawyer came to an end and he became a criminal defense lawyer. By the s Darrow was back on top as the most famous trial attorney in America, a persuasive speaker who earned up to a quarter million dollars a case.
But it wasn't the law that excited him — it was the great contest over ideas. Darrow had supported the populist candidate William Jennings Bryan in his first presidential campaign.
But he opposed Bryan's religious beliefs. For years Darrow had been trying to engage Bryan in a public debate over science and religion. He believed the Scopes trial would be the perfect platform for that debate. In the courtroom, Darrow faced an uphill battle. Judge John T. Raulston carried a Bible and began each day with a prayer. He refused to overturn the anti-evolution law and would not allow scientists to testify in favor of evolution.
Frustrated, Darrow came up with an unorthodox plan. On the seventh day of the trial, on a platform outside the Dayton, Tennesseee courthouse, he called William Jennings Bryan to the stand as an expert on the Bible. Before a crowd of two thousand people, Darrow tried to trap Bryan into admitting the absurdity of his belief in Genesis.
The debate escalated into a furious argument over the meaning of religion. Most of the latter are based on true stories and describe the encounter of the underprivileged and the uneducated with the law and the inequities they met. The original manuscript of an unpublished short story by Darrow, written very late in his life, is also a part of the collection.
There are several pieces of correspondence, the closing argument of one of his court cases, and other miscellaneous documents. Also included in the collection are letters to Mrs. Darrow after his death, memorials on his death, and speeches and articles written about him. Browse finding aids by topic. Stephen S. Wise affirmative and Clarence S. Darrow negative , Sinai Temple, Chicago, October 24, People of the State of Illinois vs.
John T.
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